1.

A desert that stretches on. The emptiness of an endless orange brown, a sweeping expanse of sun-fractured earth. The edge of a city. Summer heat ripples through the alleys, rising to blur buildings that dare to scrape the sky.
A blue ocean above their heads. A flock of birds arrowing to fresh meat on the highway. The blinding, glinting specks of aeroplanes, high, high away from the sprawling mass. Dust rises on the wavering horizon.





A room, shadowed by a grimy shirt taped to the windowpane where edges of glass are jagged. The shirt wafts in a warm breeze. It is cold inside.








The metal mug.
Dangling.
Banging gently against his thighs.
Cold brown liquid flicks to the carpet.
A few stray drips.
Eyes are wide, dark-ringed.
Twitching from left to right.
Jaw clenched, teeth slowly grinding.
Goosebumps prickle his skin, hairs upright.

Mark shivers.

Blinks; refocuses his gaze.
The bare wall.
Looks down.
Sighs.
Another wasted mug of coffee.
Another stain to sully the floor.
Gunshot wounds of spills and spatters.
Shaking stiff limbs, Mark pads across the room.
Unsure.
Dazed.
Out of sync.
Trips on the over-long tattered bottoms of his jeans.
The cup tumbles from his loose grasp.
Clatters across a leftover plate and fork.
Thunks at the foot of his mattress and rocks back to the floor.
The odd silence is deafening for a moment.
Mark stares at his empty hand, then the unreflective metal mug.
The distant rush of a car.
The engine sputtering.
The unrelenting chatter of women as they pass far below his window.
Sounds slowly collapse in on themselves.
Mark recognises the world again. He presses his tongue against the cage of his teeth.
He pushes fiercely, grunts. Sighing heavily, he feels a little tightness in his chest.








Shoving off a faded, dusty letter from the sill, Mark sank with an expulsion of air to settle a bony elbow on the stone ledge at his window and cupped his stubbled chin in his palm. He shifted the dirty shirt from the view and let sunshine flood into his eyes.
The city was humming beneath his gaze, shimmering in the heat. Rooftops roasted in the blazing day, solar panels whirring as they rotated minutely with the slow descent of the sun. It was early afternoon, Mark made an educated guess, and the citizens below would still be toiling through work-shifts, their children yawning through lessons. He rubbed at the worn, cracking concrete under his fingertips and watched as little flecks of dust drifted off the edge into the air. Sunken grey eyes followed the tiny specks until they lost themselves in the near distance.
The headache of this morning had ceased its incessant drumming on his brain; it was now a dull thudding. He was thankful for that, but the displacement of time, the lost hours, could not be recovered. Neither, he suspected, could his job. For the seventh time in as many months Mark was slumped at the empty window and waiting for the melodic tones of his mobile phone.





Yeah?
Yes.
Yeh, I know.
I’m sorry.
I was asleep.
I had a headache.
Yes.
No.
Sorry.
Didn’t have any.
The shop was too far.
I passed out.
The doctors?
Yes…
I’m sorry again. I’ll get checked out.
I’ll make an appointment in the morning.
Huh, should be better by tomorrow.
They’re usually just day things.
I know.
Yes.
Ok.
I’m sorry again; it’ll be the last time.
I’ll remember.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks.
Goodbye.
Bye.





Flipping the phone shut, Mark dumped it onto his mattress bed and ran a hand through messy black hair. He grimaced, fingering greasy strands, then rolled his eyes and scratched at a bite on his arm.
“What the fuck am I doing…?”
The sunlight distracted his thoughts. Beams splintered through his room where the shirt hung loose on its strips of tape. Mark glanced into the corners where usually only shadows reigned. He glanced away from the junk that littered them. There was a scuffle, a rustle, and the fidgeting movements of something at the edge of his vision.
Turning his eyes back to a corner of the room, behind the door, where an accumulation of old tissues and pages of discarded newspapers were shifting in humps and bumps, Mark raised his eyebrows. He slowly began to chuckle under his breath. From the trash emerged a mouse, snuffling and beady eyed in the afternoon sun.
“You’re kidding me…” He laughed again. “Shit.”
Sauntering over, careful not to move into the stream of light and disturb the slight thing, Mark hovered to its left and stared down. The mouse, a murky grey-dirt colour, made an infinitesimal squeak and shuddered. Crouching ever so cautiously down, he scowled, wondering how long the little bastard had been infesting his home.
Mark ignored the itch on his arm, not wanting to scare the mouse with any sudden movements and bit his lip as he began to descend his hand over the creature. It squeaked again and sniffed at the air. Before having a chance to scent human and imminent capture, Mark swooped his fingers down and scooped its struggling scrawny body tightly between his cupped hands.
“You little beggar, come here.”

The chunking twist of the lock registered only seconds before the door smacked Mark in the side of the head. Stumbling sideways, he pressed his hand to the wall to steady himself. Mark felt pincer teeth stab into his fingers and the vermin creature escaped. Distracted by the pain, he missed in which direction the mouse sped off. He was rising to his feet unsteadily when a scruffy-looking guy poked his head around the door and laughed at the sight.
“Mark, what the hell are you doing behind the door?”
“Ugghhh…” Mark clamped a hand about his head, the pressure of the morning’s headache surging back. Through squinting eyes, the dark blurry shape could have been anyone, but Nathan’s heavy drawl was unmistakable.
“Nate, you fuck.” He gasped out through the intermittent squeezes of his brain matter. Something long and spiky jabbed him in the stomach and Mark grunted, wrenching the offending umbrella away, hearing it’s metal tip scrunge across the wall.
“Don’t fucking poke me with that thing.”
Nate laughed again and Mark attempted to blink his vision clear whilst using the wall to help himself upright.
“Nate.”
“Yeah, yeah alright. How’s the head?”
“Fuck you.”
Mark took his hand from the wall and stepped towards the mattress. Legs shaking with the force of electricity, he let out a short noise of pain and put the hand back.
“You alright mate?” There was a drifting breeze of concern in the question.
“You smacked a door into my head.”
“Yeah but, you look like shit. And your finger’s bleeding.”
“I’d caught a mouse.”
“Huh… you can’t afford bread again?”
Mark let out a frustrated whine and waved his hand in Nate’s general direction. He hit himself on the metal prong that previously had been poked in his midriff.
“Goddamnit Nathan, put your goddamn umbrella down!”
“Language, language.”
“Don’t language me, if my head wasn’t thumping like a dog in heat I’d come over there and lamp you.”
“Harsh. And I came here with something to show you and everything.”
Leaning back, resting his pounding head on the cold wall, Mark attempted to stay focused on the man in front of him. The umbrella weapon was chucked down on Mark’s bed and he laughed at the ludicrous memories of Nathan walking down the sun-ridden streets, singing without the rain.
“Don’t laugh already.” Nate was mock-indignant and Mark raised his dark eyebrows.
“I was laughing at your umbrella.”
“You always do.”
“It’s stupid.”
“That may be, but it’s mine. Now, are you going to ask?”
“What?”
“What it is.”
“What is what?”
“What I have to show you!”
“Oh jeez, what is it Nate?”
“Well, if you’re gonna be like that…”
“Just tell me.”
“They’re legal again!”
Looking wearily confused at Nate, Mark wondered if the dread-locked crazy had finally driven himself totally bonkers.
“At least guess for me!” Nathan whinged and tugged a lock of his blonde hair.
“I haven’t got the slightest idea.” Mark rubbed his toe against the side of his foot and pressed it inwards against the muscles. Maybe if he hurt himself elsewhere, the jarring pain in his head would stop. It would have to be a lot of pain, he decided, and probably was not worth the hassle.
“Mark…”
The man looked at Nathan.
“Our most favourite truffles! After twelve years! We gotta celebrate!”
“Nate. When did the legality of shrooms ever cross your mind as a problem?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Look.” Mark pushed himself from the wall and stumbled slowly to the window, fumbling with the shirt that he needed to hang back across the hole. “You know the deal there, why’d you bother?” He stretched up on his tiptoes and slapped the tape back over the concrete, sunlight fading from his room.
“After you weren’t at work again today, I assumed…”
“Yeah, well, you were wrong. Now get out, I’ve got a mouse to catch.”
“Mark…”
“Nathan, I’m serious. Take your umbrella, take your bloody drugs and get out of my house.”
“You can hardly call this a house.”
“It’s my house.”
“More like a cell.”
“It’s a home.”
“No, this is called a shithole, it’s rat-infested!”
“Mouse-infested. Now leave.”
“Can’t I at least trip here?”
“What the fuck?” Mark slammed his hand to his head as the pain increased, shunting through his mind, a heavy-duty train of blistering fire.
“Are you ok?”
“No. Please, just go away?”

He had closed his eyes and missed the look of consternation that passed over Nathan’s face before the addled guy had ambled over, picked up his yellow umbrella and shuffled from the room, grumbling under his breath. As he left, he chucked a tinfoil packet at Mark’s feet and did not bother to close the door. Mark would have frowned in disappointment and aggravation but at that moment his brain seized and sent a shockwave through his body.








It began as a trickle, an icy river.  It crept into him, rupturing his arteries. Was a freezing burn. a numbness.  stark cruel pain  smooth mercury cold  his fingers  arm  neck  spine  through the veins  a breath  shudders  needing?  wanting?  an arching back  heart pulses cold  empty void  devours  flesh  

falls

claws at the floor  hands and feet  chest pushes  gasps  lost  consciousness  flickers  frozen light  numb  winter-gripped tissue  winding  binding capillaries  mind grasping  mouth twists  hungry  

slumps  cold consumes  lay back  no fighting  struggling  weak  willing now  open

darkness  emptiness  silence  void

then

a slow infusion  glimmers  swirls of white  a world  veins of light  a room  a created universe  streams of cold scoring through flesh  burning white  open  eyes seeing  black and white  

stands  stretches out  hand strains  searches  strands of white life  

walks

the world alive  tendrils of life  white lines in everything

recognises  

understands  

room  black and white  no colour  numbness  flesh of black and white  sees  flesh dark  veins of white  alive  life  trickling  constant worms of light  through  through  through  a surge  groin to chest  explosion  a grunt  jolted  awareness

shifted gaze  

in the darkness  a dense cluster  small  white tangled veins  scurries across black  no sound  little body of white  life  vines  floating  holding together

walks

the cluster stops  

crouches  places out hand  a web of frost  touch

presses against  feels nothing  black into black  slowly  white into white  flare  heat  

pull away  

shortness of breath  

little knot  white veins shake  

slowly  again  

black into black  smooth  the empty cold  white into white  heavy  the searing fire  touch  white into white  traces over white  over life  tug

scream

let drop  pull away  

scream?  silence  no sound  void  emptiness  darkness  
scream

shudder  close eyes  shake  scream  white veins tremble  fury  

open

fingers  black into black  white into white  white heat  white fury  clench  strip the white from the black from the white from the black  a tendril of white  twirls in the black  twists  white smoke  a wisp  dissipates  

a muted eruption  faint screech  bleeding trails of white  streaks over a dark dark black the empty flesh  the little cluster pulses  a bright white  ripples through black,  fades,  white fading.  The maze of veins gone. There are sputters of light in his sight. The world seeps from black to grey, to grey, to white, nothing.









silence









Mark shivers.

Swallows in lungfuls of air.
Dizziness.  
Squeezes his eyes tight.
Slowly draws them open.
Afraid.
Expels a sigh.
The room streaked with dying sunlight.
Ordinary.

Mark looks down.

He topples back.
His wrists wrench in pain.
Edging away from the tiny body, the stiff brown-grey fur.
Laying there, motionless, crouching still.
Mark closes his eyes, he breathes. He opens his eyes, closes them.

Black against black.
White against white.
The screams.

His eyes flash open and he stares forward at the mouse. Twisting away from the sight, Mark gets up and unsteadily staggers to his sink.  His fingers tighten over the white enamel edge. His face lunges toward the dark plughole. He throws up.